Call me a skeptic, but I think that writing content is still going to be the primary communication method on Facebook. Although video can provide a sight and sound experience that rivals what you can get across with words on a screen, it has one big stumbling block in my eyes: it takes too long.

Whether it is a live shot or some pre-recorded clip, even if it is as short as 60 seconds, it still takes longer than it would to read a big chunk of text that you can see all at once. You can look ahead to the relevant part, see at a glance if it will be worth your time to read the whole thing or not. These decisions and interactions with the text often happen so quickly that you barely realize your mind has done these things.

Video just burns up so much more time because it is something that to fully consume you have to proceed from the beginning to the end. You can’t effectively watch video faster like you can read faster or just skim, more of the message gets lost.

Also, people seem more forgiving of the unpolished aspects of video in this area now, but only as it is a novelty. Once the newness wears off, people will be just as unforgiving of poor or even average video as they are now with poor writing. It only takes a glance or a few seconds of reading to know if it’s something to move on from, but with video you are stuck with watching at their pace as the seconds and minutes tick by as you wait to see if it will get good or not.

Ain’t nobody got time for that…

One clap, two clap, three clap, forty?

By clapping more or less, you can signal to us which stories really stand out.